Clojure: Getting Started in 5 Steps (Intellij+La Clojure)

Note: La Clojure currently has a show-stopping Windows bug – I’ll remove this note when it has been fixed.

If emacs isn’t your thing, or you prefer a modern IDE (read: GUI) for development, I recommend IntelliJ IDEA.  An open-source, community edition was just released, and it is definitely worth giving a spin – I’ve been a fan since I first tried it a couple of years ago.

Being at a university where the first language taught is Java, but transferring from an institution where C++ was dominant was a bit of a pain.  IntelliJ got me through my Java-based courses.  I tried and managed with Eclipse and NetBeans for the first semester – but we were given a significant initial framework.

Enough of my praise for IntelliJ.  Let’s get started!

• 1. Download IntelliJ

• 2. Install IntelliJ

• 3. Let IntelliJ know where the JDK is (Linux only)

Assuming that a JDK is already installed, run
updatedb; locate jdk | grep jre$
Do something like the following based on those results
echo "export JDK_HOME=\"/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre\"" >> ~/.bashrc

• 4. Install ‘La Clojure’ Plugin

Run IntelliJ, open the plugin manager, and search for ‘la clojure’.   Select it for installation, and click OK.

• 5. Create a Clojure Project

Click ‘Create New Project’, select ‘Create project from scratch’, give it a descriptive name, and select ‘Clojure’ as a desired technology.

• Start a REPL!

Tools -> Clojure REPL Actions -> Add new Clojure REPL

Italian translation tools

I’m in an Italian diction class (for singing), and as part of that I get to translate texts sometimes.

Having Spanish at my disposal is quite useful, as I can guess most things, and most things I’m not so sure about can readily be translated into Spanish.

As such, I’m not so sure that these will be useful to many, but they are useful to me.

So, first, an italian-spanish dictionary
next, the drae (Diccionario Real Academia Española)
and an old spanish-english dictionary for those words not found in the italian-spanish dictionary (deh and fida come to mind).

Protected: A (fairly vivid) Dream

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Clojure: Getting Started in 5 Simple Steps (Emacs+Slime)

More than anything, this post succinctly describes how to get up and running with Clojure + Emacs. Virtually no thinking is required if you are working from a default install of Ubuntu, and not much more is required for any linux distro – you just need to know how to use your package manager.

Furthermore, if any of these steps would cause you trouble (deleting .emacs* comes to mind), you probably already know how to handle it.

A few new things (to me)

Emacs starter kit:
improves advanced configuration of emacs

OpenDNS:
basic web filtering

Gizmo:
make and receive online calls

Google Voice:
very nifty phone enhancements

(the above two can be combined to give free skype-in/out type service)

Wiping Data (or Secure Deletion) from Linux

WARNING: This blog post was posted at approximately 3 AM. As a result, it is not very well defined. Had I been thinking, I would have been more to the point. As it is, I may repost more info about the Seagate HD when it is successfully RMAd.

One of my hard drives is making sounds that indicate that it could fail at any time; In order to prevent any losses, I ordered a new drive. I spent a while copying all of my data from one drive to the next (I generally have 2 drives in my computer at a given time; the drive closer to failure contains data that is broadly available online, so losses should be minimal if anything happens, while my personal data is semiannually burned to disc and regularly synced to my brother’s computer). At any rate, I finished the migration, and started updating my install on the new drive.

The next morning I got up and found that my computer was making a horribly disturbing sound. The update process had blocked on a prompt for my acceptance of a license agreement.

Resizing windows in Gnome

I’ve been using fluxbox for a year or two, but I’ve decided to give another WM a shot for a while.  However, just because I am trying something out doesn’t mean that I want to change my usual bindings.

I’ve been using gnome for a day or so now.  Instead of rebinding all of my application startup keys, I’ve mostly been using ALT+F2 to launch whatever I want, which is pretty effective.

Anyway, to get to the point, Gnome’s default resizing operation is ALT+Middle click as opposed to ALT+Right click (ALT+Left click is move, which is pretty standard). 

Why Gentoo?

Not many people know that I run Gentoo (a source-based linux distribution) at home. Largely this is because most people don’t care. But for those who may care, I’ve decided to explain how Gentoo is better, at least for me.

Gentoo is known for taking a lot of time to set up – which is well deserved. Gentoo typically takes 1-3 days to complete a full install, and requires more work in maintenance than most other distros.

However, as I developer, I find that it is quite nice.

Xorg 1.5 – a step in the right direction

Interestingly enough, I recently upgraded to xorg-server 1.5 from 1.3. I removed my xorg file, and it works passably. It’s choice of graphics drivers is a little annoying – I’ve been using radeonhd and getting 3-5000 frames in glxgears. Now I’m getting about 1000, and it pegs my cpu.

However, all functionality on my mouse is auto detected – horizontal and vertical scrolling, backwards and forwards buttons. This means that my previous posts on scrolling are now obsolete – but that is life.

Eating Aloe

Well, I recently decided to taste some aloe (vera, not any of the more toxic species). I found it to be quite bitter. However, upon further experimentation, I discovered a few things… but first, I’ll describe the 4 main components, from my perspective.

Components
First off, we have the exterior (just in case you have trouble identifying this, I’ll give you a hint: it’s the green stuff).